Thoughts of a poet working in West Michigan
posted by greg rappleye at 8:59 PM
I am a writer who lives and works in West Michigan. I am a graduate of Albion College, the University of Michigan Law School, and the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. I have published three full-length collections of poetry: Holding Down the Earth (Sky Books, 1995), A Path Between Houses (University of Wisconsin Press, 2000) which won the Brittingham Prize, and Figured Dark (University of Arkansas Press, 2007), which won the University of Arkansas Press Poetry Series. I have also published three chapbooks: Eros, Psyche and the Death of Narrative (Candle Creek Press, 2006), The Afterlight (WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2006), and The Divisible Field ( WVU-Legal Studies Forum, 2008), and have completed a fourth manuscript, Tropical Landscape with Ten Hummingbirds. I am working on a novel. My work has received a Pushcart Prize, the Mississippi Review Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Prize, the Greensboro Review Literary Award in Poetry, and the Arts & Letters Prize. I was a Bread Loaf Fellow in 2002. When not writing, I work full-time as corporation counsel for a local government and also teach part-time in the English Department at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.
8 Comments:
I really love this, Greg. Glad I got a chance to read it before it disappears. :)
Collin:
Thank you for your kind words. The poem is just a tad busy...
Back to the word processor.
I've tinkered with it a bit.
Surprisingly dark for a poem whose two questions are 'how to praise' and 'what is sweetest.'
Lovely.
Nice poem. Nice picture, too. I love those old barns--no matter how many times I pass them on the road.
A few more tweaks....There!
Poetry is wonderful because (at a certain point in the revision process) one can think of it while working on other things...for example, I also just drafted a huge lease.
"Dark, dark, that is the most important word. How do I intend to solder fragments into a story that will sweep one along?"
-Franz Kafka
I misquoted Kafka. It properly goes: "Bitter, Bitter, that is the most important word..."
Which in this context, is apropos of nothing.
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